Thursday, February 16, 2017

Michael - Thursday

EFF members in red being ejected from parliament

I’ve been
brooding about free speech. Why everyone is in favor of it, but no one really
seems to like it. I suppose this was motivated by the State of the Nation
address that our president – the redoubtable Jacob Zuma – presented to
parliament this week. It’s an annual event that gives the president an
opportunity to present highs and lows of the last year, and enunciate policy
for the coming one. In the event, the speech was long on rhetoric and short on
new ideas or realizable plans. Not many people actually noticed the speech
because it was drowned out by protests from the radical Economic
Freedom Fighters, led by the colorful Julius Malema. In advance of the speech,
the parliament chamber was occupied by the army to keep order. (Yes, the army.
Not the police. There’s a message there.) Julius and his followers were
forcibly expelled from the chamber to join the demonstrators outside, and the
official opposition – the Democratic Alliance – walked out in protest. The
whole thing was good television, and did well on Facebook and Twitter.

Julius has his say outside

Zuma is held
in such low esteem that his address was regarded as an insult, not worth
listening to. More so, he shouldn’t even be allowed to say it. In this case,
the speech was freely available afterwards, and so the opposition parties could
read all the details after the event in time to start objecting to them in the
debate the next day. Was the speech worth hearing? Probably not. Was it appropriate
that people be allowed to hear it? Despite my feelings about the president and
his failings, I would argue that it was.

The press
on the other hand – supposedly the bastions of free speech - face more and more
regulation. Everywhere – South Africa is no exception – governments are
developing more laws and rules, sometimes with harsh penalties, to prevent the
press from reporting ‘certain matters’ or misreporting (in the government’s
view). As the New York Times pointed out today, Trump embraced the leaks of
Clinton’s emails and called for more openness in ‘the swamp’ that he intended
to drain when elected, but he was horrified by the pardon of the ‘traitorous’
Chelsea Manning, and is now very negative about leaks concerning his own
administration.

Perhaps
free speech is only an issue when it’s not the powerful who are doing the
talking? How about the case of Helen Suzman – who spent her life opposing the
apartheid government here as the sole true opposition representative in parliament – being refused
permission to speak at Wits University? There were reasons why this might have
inflamed radical students or perhaps infringed the University’s careful
impartiality in the elections, but was it not worth hearing what she had to
say? Shouldn’t her liberal and consistently honest views have been heard?

UC Berkeley demonstartion

Recently, President
Trump threatened federal funds allocated to the University of
California-Berkeley in the aftermath of a riot that forced the cancellation of
a speech by Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos. I don’t know that
gentleman from a bar of soap and I suspect I would have rejected his views and hated his speech, but I won’t
know now, will I?

On the
other hand, we have ‘fake news’ – even the Russians are complaining about it –
where people announce events, usually on social media, that they know actually never
happened. Is this also free speech? Surely not. It’s a somewhat weaker form of
shouting ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater. No one seems concerned about this,
however. Much of what’s coming out of the White House these days seems to fall
into this category, and readily believed.

I know that
the boundaries of free speech and what it means in terms of context is a vexed
subject, and it can be argued strongly from several points of view. It does
seem to me, however, that for free speech to be meaningful, you have to be
allowed to listen and make up your own mind.

18 comments:

Hear, hear. Let's hear a little more tolerance, from everyone, for everyone. I fully support Trump's freedom of speech. I also fully support my freedom to not listen to him. But humans... will we ever evolve into wiser, more tolerant beings? It's a long, slow road, and some days traffic seems to be stuck in reverse.

Yiannopoulos is an editor for the far-right Breitbart website. He is an associate of Steve Bannon's. He promotes every type of bigotry and is open about it. He is regarded as a neofascist.

Also, he was banned from Twitter permanently because he led a racist, misogynistic attack on that social media against Leslie Jones, an African-American actor because he didn't like her acting in a movie.

Twitter draws a distinction between hate speech and free speech and its users have to sign an agreement that they won't engage in hate speech.

At an event in Seattle where Yiannopoulos, people were protesting. One of his supporters shot a protesters and seriously wounded the person.

The word 'numpty; is often used in polite company when another word might be more apposite... but socially unacceptable.....a word that might float across the mind of all those present.....but remains unspoken

Exactly, Zoe. Maybe Yiannopoulos wasn't a good example - I don't know what he was going to say - but I'm sure there are lots of examples on the left and the right and even the middle (where Helen Suzman sat). Who decides?

A lot can be learned from Germany in the 1930s and when the Nazis started repressing their political opponents, which began in the early 1930s.At the same time, they began circulating anti-Semitic propaganda and also embarking on a eugenics program against people with disabilities.

For those following the Southern Poverty Law Center's website, it has been reporting a high increase in hate crimes since the Nov. 8 election and more since the inauguration -- against Muslims, immigrants, Latinos, Jews, women and LGBT people.

A few days after the inauguration, an "alt-right" group met near the White House with a few hundred giving the Nazi salute to the new "president."

And six people praying at a mosque in Quebec City were killed by a white supremacist a few weeks ago.

A guy was just convicted for organizing a militia to kill Muslims in Tennessee. And another guy was arrested in South Carolina for his plan to kill African Africans.

A certain "president" here used hate speech in his campaign and the far right became emboldened. Hate speech whips them up and this "president" won't denounce the ultra-right groups who support them or their actions.

This isn't just an intellectual or academic matter. Hate speech whips up more hate speech and results in horrific actions with people seriously hurt or worse, as in Quebec City.

The killer there is a white supremacist and says he is a "Trump supporter."

A very pertinent article in the New York Times. You don't need violence and overt suppression to destroy freedom of speech. All you need is a lack of courage.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/business/media/trump-era-media-censorship.html?emc=edit_th_20170218&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=68423547&_r=0

Another interesting article from the Washington Post. Why shouting down right wingers only strengthens their support:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/21/how-milo-yiannopoulos-proves-the-gop-is-stuck-in-opposition-mode/?utm_term=.bed9ca944670&wpisrc=nl_most-draw16&wpmm=1

Michael, you know my politics very well. But I have to say, in conversation with people off my own persuasion, I have tried to differentiate Trump's supporters and make a case for some of them. I try to explain that some are not "deplorable" but those left completely behind by economic change and desperate for hope and help. The mainstream of both parties ignored them to our peril. I have been publically vilified for making such statements. We are are doomed if we can't find a way to listen to one another.

I think it's OK to listen but it depends where it's going. If it's about loss of jobs or homes or lack of medical care, I can deal with it. If it slightly veers towards racism, anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant bias or anti-woman or anti-gay bias, I don't want to hear it. Reasonable economic discussions are fine. I hear them on TV. But there has to be room for dialogue without bigotry.